SUNS #5984 Monday 13 March 2006



SOUTH NORTH DEVELOPMENT MONITOR (SUNS)

published by Third World Network

SUNS #5984 Monday 13 March 2006

Thirty-six cases show growing bio-piracy in Africa

Kuala Lumpur, 10 Mar (Chee Yoke Heong) -- A recent report detailing 36 cases

of bio-piracy in Africa has been creating ripples at international meetings

negotiating a fair deal for developing countries to benefit from their

genetic resources and traditional knowledge.

The report, entitled "Out of Africa: Mysteries of Access and Benefit

Sharing" (available at ), provides 36 brief

case studies of medicines, cosmetics and agricultural products that

originate from bio-diversity (including plants, marine life and microbes) in

African countries and that have been patented by multinational companies

without there being evidence of benefits accruing to the countries of

origin.

Published by the US-based Edmonds Institute with the collaboration of the

African Centre for Bio-safety based in South Africa, the report was released

at a meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which discussed

international rules to regulate bio-prospecting and ensure fair and

equitable benefits to countries and communities that provide biological

resources and associated traditional knowledge.

The report made a strong impact on delegates at the 4th Meeting of the

Working Group on Access and Benefit Sharing in Granada in January that was

negotiating an international regime.

It was also referred to by some delegations (Kenya and Sri Lanka) as

evidence that bio-piracy is rampant and on-going during a World Trade

Organisation meeting in February on the relationship between the WTO's TRIPS

agreement and the CBD's access and benefit sharing principles.

The biological resources concerned are for medicinal, agricultural,

horticultural and cosmetics uses. In most cases there are no evidence or

even information of benefit sharing agreements. Some of the patents claimed

also appear highly questionable. Thus, the report calls for each case to be

further investigated and in greater detail. (See below for examples of the

cases.)

The report's author, Jay McGown, says in the introduction: "It's a

free-for-all out there, and until the parties to the CBD solve the problems

of access and benefit sharing, the robbery will continue. They've got to

declare a moratorium on access until a just protocol is finished and

implemented.

"Until then, the bio-pirates will keep on shouting in the ears of their

victims, There's no such thing as piracy! And at the rate discussions are

going, the bio-pirates may access everything before an agreement is

finalised. If that happens there really will be no such thing as piracy.

There will only be patent and trade secret transgression."

Mariam Mayet, Executive Director of the African Centre for Bio-safety,

speaking at a panel discussion during the CBD meeting, said: "In just one

month of searches of various databases including the website of the US

Patent and Trademark Office, we discovered these cases across the African

continent. It was a shock to see the number of patents given or being

claimed."

Co-panelist Dr. Ossama El Tayeb, head of the Egyptian delegation at the

meeting, called the report the tip of an iceberg. There were five possible

cases of bio-piracy involving Egypt in the report. Reports such as this

emphasised the urgency for a legally binding global treaty to prevent

bio-piracy.

Dr. Ossama pointed out that from the list of the report's cases, it was

clear that derivatives of biological resources were very much the target of

bio-prospecting for commercial value, and this is why the international

regime must include derivatives.

[Developed countries and their pharmaceutical, agriculture and biotechnology

industries are very strongly against the inclusion of derivatives in the

scope of the international regime.]

Edmonds Institute President, Beth Burrows, described the report as "a litany

of cases of suspicious bio-diversity acquisition." She said the author spent

only a month to find the many cases through databases available on the

internet. The report also indicates potential contacts in each case, for

verifying, clarifying and extending what has been found.

"Bio-piracy", according to the publishers, is a term that refers to "the

acquisition of bio-diversity, i. e., biological material (plants, animals,

microorganism, and their parts), or of traditional knowledge related to that

bio-diversity, without the prior informed consent of those whose

bio-diversity or traditional knowledge has been taken."

One of the best known and most recent cases of bio-piracy involves Hoodia,

an appetite suppressant that capitalized on the traditional knowledge of the

indigenous San people in South Africa.

Developed and patented by the South African Council for Scientific and

Industrial Research (CSIR), exclusive rights were sold to a British company.

It was only after worldwide outcry that a minuscule percentage of the

royalties were made available to the San in the form of a trust. The Hoodia

case is still cited as an example of inadequate benefit sharing and

questionable prior informed consent.

Mariam Mayet said: "When you look at what has been taken in the recent past

from African countries, it runs the gamut from bio-diversity used for

medicine to bio-diversity used for agriculture, horticulture, cosmetics, and

industrial purposes. It's unbelievable how much has been taken without a

public accounting and without any permission from the communities and

peoples involved".

"There's a huge amount to be accounted for," Burrows noted. "It's not easy

to prove bio-piracy. Where contracts are not published and national rules of

access and benefit sharing may not exist or are not attended to by

bio-prospectors, or the companies and institutions they represent, it is

difficult to verify claims of theft, even when you catch the thieves with

the booty in hand, or in their patent portfolios."

Mayet added: "For access and benefit sharing to work, according to the

vision of the CBD, one should be able to verify that in each instance of

use, particularly where bio-diversity and/or its derivatives have been

patented, the whole process began in prior informed consent and a benefit

sharing agreement from the people whose bio-diversity has been accessed."

Although the CBD addressed the terms and conditions for access to genetic

resources and benefit-sharing in the original treaty that came into force in

1993, it was not until 1999 that efforts were made to operationalize the

treaty's provisions. The process was taken forward in negotiations at the

2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg, and

continued at the 4th Meeting of the ABS Working Group held in Granada, Spain

in January 2006. It will also figure at the Conference of Parties of the CBD

to be held in Curitiba (Brazil) next week.

The developing countries are also bringing up the bio-piracy issue in two

other key fora: the WTO (where they are asking that the TRIPS Agreement be

amended to require disclosure of the origin of genetic resources and

evidence of consent and benefit sharing) and at the WIPO (where they are

asking that the issue be included in the negotiations on a substantive

patent law treaty).

In all the fora (CBD, WTO, and WIPO), many developing countries have been

advocating legally binding global rules and measures to prevent or punish

bio-piracy, but they face strong resistance from most developed countries.

The following is a selection of 11 cases from the 36 cases in the Edmonds

Institute report on bio-piracy in Africa:

-- Diabetes drug produced by a microbe from Kenya: Acarbose is a drug taken

by Type II diabetics. The German company Bayer filed a patent on a new way

to manufacture the product. According to the 1995 application, a

actinoplanes sp. bacteria strain called SE50 has unique genes enabling the

biosynthesis of acarbose in fermentors and the strain comes from Kenya's

Lake Ruiru. The author found no evidence of benefit sharing of this valuable

microbe.

-- Extracts from a medicinal plant Artemista judaica from Libya, Egypt and

other North African countries for the treatment of diabetes was patented by

a UK company, Phytopharm Plc. It admits that the plant has been used in

Libyan traditional medicine for the treatment of diabetes. However, despite

the explicit declaration of a lack of novelty, the US Patent Office has

granted the patent. The author said he could not find a company intellectual

property policy on the traditional knowledge it patents nor any evidence of

a benefit sharing agreement related to this patent.

-- Antibiotics from a termite hill found in Gambia: In the 1970s, rapamycin,

an immunosuppressive drug that is used in medicine (for example, to prevent

rejection of organ transplant) was discovered from a Streptomyces sample

collected in Easter Island. The discovery of rapamycin sparked a search for

other Streptomyces that produce similar compounds. SmithKline Beecham (now

Glaxo SmithKline) has claimed a compound from a Streptomyces strain that it

says was isolated from a termite hill at Abuke, Gambia. The strain produces

a rapamycin-related compound called 29-desmethylrapamycin and, according to

the patent, it is useful both as an anti-fungal and as an immunosuppressant.

However, no information was found about any benefit sharing arrangements

between the company and Gambia.

-- Four multipurpose medicinal plants that were obtained from Ethiopia and

neighbouring countries: A researcher in Tennessee has obtained a US patent

on four African medicinal plants. The patent makes sweeping claims for

preparations of the plant extracts and against "breast cancer, leukemia,

melanoma and myeloma" and "viral infection, diabetes, Parkinson's disease,

tuberculosis, or fungal infections." The patent covers use of Millettia

ferruginea alone or with one or more of the three other medicinal plants

that are claimed - Glinus lotoides, Ruta chalepensis and Hagenia abyssinica.

All of the plants grow in Ethiopia and have medicinal uses there, as well as

in some other countries. Despite the patent, little appears new about the

medicinal uses claimed for these plants. The author could not find any

benefit-sharing agreement.

-- Drug addiction treatment from Iboga plant that has long been used in

Central and West Africa: In low doses, it serves as a stimulant to maintain

alertness, for example, while hunting. In larger does, it is a hallucinogen,

traditionally used for religious purposes. But in recent years, it has drawn

the interest of drug-addiction researchers, as Iboga reportedly has the

effect of ending cravings for addictive substances, such as heroin and

nicotine. There is thus great interest in Iboga to cure some drug

addictions. Numerous patents have been taken out on Iboga, but the author

could not find any evidence of benefit sharing related to Iboga.

-- Multipurpose Kombo butter derived from Central and West Africa: Kombo

butter, an extract of the African nutmeg (Pycnanthus angolensis), has been

used in Europe and North America since at least the 1970s, when it was

identified as the source of cetyl myristoleate, a 'dietary supplement' used

to treat arthritis. The plant is native to Central Africa. As a

vegetable-derived fatty acid, it is suitable for personal care products and

because it is of plant origin, it can be used in products that are Kosher,

Halal and 'non animal'. As a result, a wave of intellectual property claims

is being made on Kombo butter. Although African exporters are presumably

being paid as suppliers of raw or semi-possessed Kombo butter, there was no

evidence of any benefit sharing agreement related to use of Pycnanthus

angolensis as a genetic resource.

-- Groundnuts from Malawi: The University of Florida has filed for plant

breeders' rights on eight varieties of groundnuts since 2000. One of those

varieties, called C-99R, is a 'runner' type. The University of Florida has

licensed C-99R to the Golden Peanut Company, a peanut processor with

operations in major peanut-producing areas in the US and Argentina. C-99R

has important African origins. Plant variety registration materials make

clear that one of C-99R's major and direct parents comes from the USDA's

plant collection (PI 259785) from Malawi. PI 259785 was collected in 1959

and the Malawian variety bears important disease resistance characteristics

that are present in C-99R. The author found no evidence of benefit-sharing

with Malawi.

-- Ocean resources from African countries: Since the entry into force of the

CBD, patenting of marine resources (such as sponge extracts from Cape Verde,

Kenya, Eritrea, Seychelles and South Africa; sea hare extracts from

Mauritius; and tunicate extracts from Comoros) has been on the rise.

However, there are as yet no clear rules governing deep sea bio-prospecting.

The author, however, could not find a benefit sharing agreement related to

any of these patents. If there are agreements, their terms appear to be

private.

-- The cancer fighting agent of Bitterleaf from sub-Saharan Africa: A

scientist at Jackson State University in the US obtained a US patent in 2005

on extracts of Vernonia amygdalina, an African medicinal plant called

Bitterleaf which is native to most of sub-Saharan Africa and is used in many

countries. According to the patent, the extracts are effective against

cancer. The inventor obtained samples in Benin City, Nigeria. Questions

arise as to whether the invention is new and if benefits derived from its

use will be shared.

-- Infection-fighting mycobacteria from Uganda: A mycobacteria collected in

Uganda in the 1970s has been patented at least five times in the US. It

covers use of a Mycobacterium vaccae called R877R, against chronic viral

infections, including HIV. According to the patent, R877R was originally

isolated from mud samples collected in Central Uganda. The owner is a

British company, SR Pharma, Plc. SR Pharma's website indicates that more

R877R patents and commercialization may be coming soon but there is no

mention of benefit sharing.

-- Cosmetics from the baobab tree: The baobab tree, which has great cultural

symbolism, grows in much of Africa. The German company Cognis has obtained

patents in many countries (starting with France in 1997) for use of baobab

leaf extracts in cosmetic products. Cognis' 'invention' is to use the baobab

leaf mucilage as a soothing cream. But baobab has a wide variety of

traditional medicinal and other uses in Africa, including use of the leaves

and its use on the skin. Therefore, it seems most unlikely that Cognis was

the first to discover the soothing effects of baobab mucilage when applied

to the human body. +

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